Tragedy struck on September 18, 1857, when Nicholas V. Van Patten lost his wife Sarah to "Dropsy". Following the death of his wife, his business began to suffer greatly. He shut himself in his workshop; business was neglected; his confidence in mankind was abused; his generosity imposed on; as a necessary result, his possessions slipped from his grasp and finally, while he was away in Virginia, looking after a gallant son disabled for life in the 2nd Battle of Manassa, his remaining property was sold by foreclosure of mortgage and he was left homeless and penniless.

With superb moral courage he then bought 25 acres of land near-by, built a little cottage and added to it a workroom and here kept on working for his big invention.

He and Dr. J.P. Barrett, of Abbeville, a scientist, were lifetime friends. The Dr. once sent him a message, that when he completed his machine he claimed that the first use to make it was that they were to take a trip to the moon. Laying aside his notions about perpetual motion, Nicholas would rank high as an intelligent man. His three business trips to England added much to his information. On his third trip he was in the employ of Gen. Green's grandchildren to put up a factory near Nashville, Tennessee. He was sometimes censured for his religious views, being called a Universalist, but he remedied that when he and his wife joined the Cedar Grove Baptist Church by experience on May 6, 1854.

A letter was witten to his father by Gen.George Washington. The late Honorable Simpson Bobo saw the letter and urged Nicholas to make a present of it to Wofford College. He permitted the letter to go to the college for inspection but it was unfortunately lost. Nicholas had resided in different places; Lowell, MA, Utica, NY and Bordertown, NJ. At Bordertown he became familiar with Joseph Bonaparte, ex-King of Spain. He said that when the ex-King would wish to go over to Philadelphia on a shopping expidition, he would take 28 carriages along with him and had nobody to ride in them but his daughter and himself, 27 of them empty with the exception of drivers.

Nicholas hardly ever left his shop in his latter years, except once in ten years to go to the ballot-box 5 miles off, to vote the Democratic ticket. This patriotic duty cost him trouble and pain, as he had no means of conveyance of his own and in addition to the burdens and infirmities of old age, he had a dislocated hip, caused by a fall, in consequence of which he had to go on crutches. His appearance was venerable, his features were of classic mold, his heart was true and warm and his eyes were bright with fires of genius. He was a gentleman, a patriot, a philanthropist and a devoted Christian. Nicholas Van Patten had the reputation of having no superior in the mechanic arts.

Within the sound of the falls he loved and owned, at the age of 85, unbeaten and unconquerable and working to the last, death removed him from his sorrows and misfortunes and experiences of thwarted ambitions. And still within sound of the falling water over the rocks of Van Patten Shoals on the yellow Enoree, he sleeps his last mortal sleep in the little churchyard far, far from the region of his wealthy Dutch family.